His Universe
by abelslade2319
Summary: What happens after Infinity War? What happens when the dust settles and all that's left is empty hands and broken hearts? Tony Stark happens and he's not going to stop until he gets back what's his.


His Universe

Half the universe gone with the snap of giant purple fingers glittering under the unnatural glow of six Infinity Stones. Tony could see it in his mind's eye, the moment the world stopped, the moment those precious curls turned to dust in his hands, when those chocolate brown orbs so full of anguish and, god forbid, apology, vanished. As if Spiderman had never been, as if Peter Parker had never even existed save for in the brush of ash on Tony's hands.

Thanos had taken half the universe, but he'd crushed Tony's entire universe into ash. The weight of it overwhelming in its suddenness and uncertainty.

And four months later the weight was as heavy as ever.

Tony and Nebula had made their way back to Earth on the Guardians' ship, crashing with little grace upon the Compound's lush lawn with little fanfare. The billionaire had rushed from the confines of the ship, his heart in his throat as he eyed the slew of people that had surrounded the mysterious new lawn ornament. Tony had eyes only for the gorgeous redhead that bounded towards him, tears streaming unimpeded down her porcelain cheeks.

They'd collided with enough force to push the air from his lungs, letting his very first inhalation of Earth air be that of strawberries from her shampoo, her delicate perfume, and just… _Pepper_. He choked on the exhalation, his world teetering on the brink of exhaustion and the sheer agony of loss.

"Peter," Pepper whispered, her wide eyes searching around Tony as she pulled away from their embrace. Tony saw the moment realization struck, when her eyes watered and tears spilled down her face. "No, Tony. No."

His face crumpled and she pulled him back into the safety of her arms, one hand in his hair like he did to Peter to get him to calm down after a nightmare, breathing sweet nothings into his ear until Tony's shuddering sobs slowed and he wiped his face with what strength he had left.

"Tony."

The man in question stiffened for a moment before turning to look at the source of two years' worth of crushed arc reactors, bloody nightmares, and the uncaring mask of a friend he never thought he'd lose.

"Steve."

"We should talk."

Four months after that dreaded conversation, one of pent up anger over distant disputes, ever-present grief over those lost, and the punishing weight of responsibility for half of the universe, Tony and Steve had mended fences. To a point. They would never have what they once did, they would never get together over holidays or go out for shawarma like the best of friends they once claimed to be. Their relationship was one purely focused on work, on avenging all they had lost.

Thanos was the world's breaking point, but he brought two of Earth's most hardened defenders back into the game. They were stronger together. Always had been, always would be.

But Tony's every moment was simply overwhelmed by Peter. Every comment the kid ever made, every giggle and laugh, ever smile thrown his way; Tony remembered it all. Peter was his sole purpose for living. He'd been taken, and Tony would be damned if he wasn't going to get his kid back. No matter the odds, no matter the consequences. No holds barred, Tony was out for blood and he was going to get it or die trying.

* * *

The moment the world righted itself, when those that had been lost materialized seemingly out of thin air, Tony's heart nearly stopped. Because there, _there_ , past the throngs of weeping and laughing people, _there_ , stood a small teenager in red and blue. His mask was fisted in one hand, his mess of curls unruly as ever, sweat soaked and sticking to his forehead, chest heaving with barely suppressed panic until those eyes Tony had missed so much alighted on him. And Tony's world righted itself with that one look.

Until the tears spilled over, until the quaking teenager swayed on the spot and sobs shook his small frame.

Tony was on him in an instant, strong arms holding the unsteady kid up as he guided them around a corner and into an abandoned alley. With all the attention on the returned people, Tony had little doubt that anyone would remember seeing Spiderman's face this day. But the need to _protect_ , to get the kid away from prying eyes, to keep him away from people who could see him breakdown, that was ingrained in him. To protect what was his.

He let them sink to the ground when Peter's knees buckled, uncaring of the dirty water seeping into his clothes or the uncomfortable brick at his back. All his focus was on the very real, very _alive_ Peter Parker in his arms.

"Peter. Hey, kid, come on, you're okay. Everything's okay." But the words did little to reassure the trembling form in his arms, and Tony was at a loss. He'd fixed it, he'd brought Peter back, he'd made things _right_ again. What could possibly…

 _Oh._

"May," he breathed. "Oh, kid." He held Peter closer, drew his legs around the teenager and tucked the curly head under his chin, wrapping himself as snugly as possible around the broken cries of his devastated kid. As if containing the agony would make it less real, as if _he_ could snap _his_ fingers and make May reappear, take all of this hurt and confusion and replace it with happiness and light like this moment should have been.

Tears and snot soaked into Tony's shirt, but he couldn't have cared less. The object of his obsession was finally back in his arms where he belonged, and he wasn't about to let the kid out of his sight. Especially not if Aunt May was gone, like _gone_ , gone this time.

Seconds, minutes, or hours could have passed and the billionaire couldn't have said. He just murmured to the distraught kid and held him. If that was what Peter needed, Tony'd be damned if that wasn't exactly what he did. He'd do anything for the teenager, as he had come to realize in the past months.

It used to be Peter was a distraction, a happy, go lucky kid who had such idealistic and yet somehow startlingly realistic views of the world. But the more time they had spent together, the more time Tony had spent actually getting to know the kid, the more entranced Tony became. How a kid could grow up in this day and age and still be as kind, as honest, as _good_ as Peter was beyond him. Peter was a one in a million, a mere chance that he would become Spiderman, even slimmer still that he would become the only person who knew Tony Stark beyond what the tabloids portrayed. He saw past all the pomp and circumstance, saw past the façade he pushed on the world and saw the selfless and innately good person that he had pushed so far down it could barely be found. But Peter had waltzed into Tony's basement, picked up his very person, dusted him off like an old trophy, and put him back on his shelf. Like it was nothing. Like piecing Tony Stark, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, _Ironman_ , back together again was no big deal.

And the look in the kid's eyes each time he looked at his mentor was full of adoration, of acceptance, of _love_. Because underneath it all, Tony was human, and deserved to be loved by someone who saw him for who he was, and Peter had made it abundantly clear that no matter what the man thought of himself, to Peter he would always be a hero.

Tony didn't hesitate to tell anyone and everyone that Spiderman was the best of them, that he would be better than any and all of the Avengers combined.

But Tony kept Peter Parker to himself, kept the bright eyed and endlessly caring teenager locked away in an impenetrable vault in his heart. He kept the kid's identity a secret, partly because of Peter's continued need to keep his family and friends safe, but more because Tony needed Peter more than he'd ever care to admit. The kid was his anchor. Without him nothing made sense. Without him there was nothing to fight for.

Rhodey and Pepper had tried to be there for him the past months, tried to coerce him into stepping foot out of the Compound, to get some fresh air, do _anything_ but work in his lab trying to find a way to find and defeat Thanos. To get his kid back. To take Strange's words and make them make sense, to find the one possibility that meant they won, that meant they found their happily ever after or some shit. Because this wasn't it. If this was the one in however many million the wizard had been raving about, Tony would find the time stone and rewind everything to that moment just to beat the shit of that smug cultist.

Because a world without Peter Parker wasn't worth living in.

Rhodey and Pepper didn't understand that. They had met the kid and liked him, sure, but they kept him around because Tony was different when he was with the teenager. He was open, caring, loving, like he never was even with Pepper. Neither knew the kid's crime fighting counterpart, but neither had to in order to see the change the young man had wrought in a life so accustomed to seclusion. Tony had sought out Peter on many an occasion, or vice versa, simply because the other's presence was unobtrusive. It was easy to just be Tony with Peter. He didn't have to be Ironman, strong and steady, or a CEO, all-knowing and full of multimillion dollar ideas. He could be whoever he wanted to be, express anything in front of the kid, because there was no expectation for anything else.

Take that away and Tony resorted to what he knew best: science. He secluded himself to the point Rhodey and Pepper were hard pressed to even gain access to entire floors of the Compound. Overrides and locks were under Tony jurisdiction and there was no way either of them was getting somewhere in Tony's fortress of solitude without him knowing about it.

And yet they persisted and had been horribly unsuccessful at every turn.

When faced with the genius of Tony Stark in a full-on obsession, no one was his match.

Save for the broken kid in his arms. The one shaking so hard Tony was afraid it was Titan all over, that Peter was about to puff out of existence and he'd be left alone, kneeling in the kid's ashes all over again.

But he didn't.

Peter was as solid and real in his embrace as he ever had been, the tears and breath on his neck warm with every strangled pant.

And reality came crashing down on the billionaire. He had gone from ecstatic to concerned in a nanosecond and it took his brain a moment to process.

May was gone.

How? Hadn't he fixed it? He'd brought Peter, hell, _everyone_ , back. Why not May?

 _Unless she wasn't part of the 3.8 billion missing._

The thought struck with no warning, a physical blow on his already restricted diaphragm. He hadn't thought to check, hadn't thought that May's lack of heart pounding worry and unbridled anger, her lack of _presence_ , was anything but ash. He hadn't thought to look into it further, hadn't thought that something could have happened to her with all of the craziness that had led to The Snap.

He'd failed Peter.

And didn't that hurt worst of all?

He'd brought the kid back to a life that had been stripped from him. With his aunt gone, he'd have no family left. He'd be as alone as Tony had been when his parents had died.

Then and there Tony Stark vowed that one Peter Parker would never have his childhood. He'd never be treated as Tony had been, never be neglected or left behind. Peter would always be loved, by the family that was no longer with him, but also by the billionaire whose heart he had softened and the man who had moved heaven and earth to find him.

Peter would always have Tony on his side, no matter the battle, no matter the stakes.

"I've got you Pete," he told the teenager, his voice muffled by the kid's curls, the man's eyes sliding shut as he spoke. "I promise that you will have anything you could ever want. But more than that, I promise that I will _always_ be there to pick you up when you fall. I will be there to patch you up when you get knocked down, and help you stand back up again, because we both know you're not one to back down from a fight. And I will always be by your side to fight for you when you need me to, to do it for you when you can't, or to fight beside when you need someone to lean on. Bottom line? I will _always_ come for you. You hear me? _Always._ "

"Tony."

The Avenger startled when he finally heard the kid's voice. He had been waiting for it for months, and he relished the very essence of it. But the waver in the single word spoke volumes. "Yeah kid, it's me. I've got you now, okay? I'm going to get you out of here and take you home, have Bruce look you over, and make sure you're all in once piece okay?"

" _Tony_."

Tony sighed and nodded against Peter's head. "I know, Pete. I know."

Peter let out another choked sob before freeing his arms from his Tony cocoon and wrapping them around his mentor's waist. Tony's arms immediately tightened around him, shifting only slightly to give the kid better access.

"She's gone, Tony. She's gone."

Tony took a chance, "What happened, Pete?"

The stuttered inhale was all he thought he was going to get before his rigid pile of Peter spoke again. "The h-hospital called while we were on the flying donut," and even that made Tony cringe, the _after_ hitting him once again before he reined in his panic and tuned back into the kid, "They left me a message. There was an accident. She got h-hurt and, uh, and she didn't-"

Peter faltered on the final words, but Tony waited. He knew the kid needed to vocalize it, knew the words needed to be said for the pain to actually start to sink in. Hell, he'd been in Peter's same shoes on an alien planet with a blue lady his only source of comfort – or lack thereof – so he had some experience with sudden loss. But he was an adult, experienced at this point in his life with the loss of a loved one. Peter was just a kid, an innocent kid who fought crime to keep the little guy safe, making snarky comments and flinging insults all the while. What he didn't deserve was to keep losing his people. His parents. His uncle. And now his aunt. Tony's world may have been set right, but Peter's was only now collapsing.

"S-she didn't make it," Peter stuttered, his voice pitched so low Tony had to strain to hear it. "Wh-what's gonna happen to me now?"

"I told you," Tony responded immediately, jumping on the question he had answers to, "as soon as you're ready we're going to head to the Compound and I'm going to get you looked over real quick, get you fed, and get you some sleep. And after that, bud, we'll take it one day at a time okay?"

"But-"

Tony cut him off before the protestations could begin, "And you'll be staying with me. You're stuck with me for the long haul, kid. I just got you back and I'm not letting you out of my sight ever again."

It was then Tony felt the kid finally relax, felt Peter exhale as if he'd been holding his breath for years. He could see the weight lift off the slim shoulders, and he gladly shouldered it for a while. They'd share the burden when Peter was ready, but until then Tony was more than willing to stand in, for as long as it took for Peter to get his bearings, to look tragedy in the eye and say 'fuck you' each time he got knocked down. Because Peter would face this head on just like he did everything, but there always comes a time when a little help is needed. And Tony had meant what he said, though he was fairly certain he'd be repeating that little sappy speech in the near future, seeing as the kid was spaced out with shock and grief to hear much of it.

He'd say it as many times as he needed to until it stuck.

And then he'd say it again.

Because Tony wasn't going anywhere, that was for damn sure.

Come crazy Asgardians or giant purple power-hungry aliens, Tony was keeping a firm grip on his little spider and never letting go.


End file.
